On 6W4D, kidney stones, & 2nd ultrasound

Originally written: Tuesday, January 29th, 10:00am

The first ultrasound went great. The nurse said everything looked "perfect".

Since then, actually starting that day, I was having lower abdomen cramping. At first I thought it was pregnancy growing pains, but then slowly realized it was a UTI. On that Monday (the 21st), I saw the physician's assistant at work, he confirmed UTI and I started Keflex. By that night, I started having left flank pain and realized it was a kidney stone. I went to my primary care physician the next day, had an ultrasound done, and had another urine dip - blood in the urine. That Thursday morning, I got telephone confirmation from my primary care doc that it was a stone. I made an appt with the urologist for the following day, and kept my RE's office informed of everything going on.

Kidney stones are nothing new to me. I've gotten them every few years since I was maybe 16? I tend to create really huge stones, but thankfully, this one was on the smaller side. I once had a stone so large, and causing so many blockage and infection issues, that I had to have it surgically removed and spent about a week in the ICU. I always knew you were more suseptible to stones in pregnancy but didn't think they would hit me so soon. I credit the early arrival with me starting to take Calcium supplements the preceding week, as suggested by my pregnancy packet from the RE.

Now, mind you, I couldn't take anything for pain except Tylenol, and let's be real - Tylenol doesn't do a damn thing for you. My pain relief was in the form of using my big tub all the time and a heating pad to my lower back. I would puke from the pain and had awful pain when trying to urinate. When I went to the urologist, I fully expected that he would give me something for pain... namely Percocet or Vicodin, which my DH's RN abilities told him are pregnancy safe in the first trimester and typically given for stones. Of course the urologist wouldn't give me anything - I almost started crying right in the office. He told me that the stone was probably already in my urinary tract, and therefore, the pain I was really feeling was from my uterus crushing my kidney and my bladder. He told me to try sleeping on my back. He said if I wanted something for pain, I needed to contact my OB.

Of course it was about 3:45pm on a Friday when I called. The nurse told me that if I wanted pain medications, I needed to go to the ER to "establish treatment" and then they could decide if I "needed" pain medication. Because of the line of work DH & I are in, we were able to quickly assess that the ER was mobbed and it wouldn't be worth me going. I stuck it out the entire weekend with my tub and heating pad.

Right now, I haven't really had any pain (except bladder pain) in the past 48 hours. I had been drinking lemon water like a crazy person (which is supposed to help break up the stone), so I'm wondering if it dissolved the stone a bit and I passed it without realizing. To be honest, I hadn't been checking the toilet for the stone, so who knows. I'm going to take it as a win for me.

I had an appt with the OB yesterday. They said everything looks great. Because I used to have hypertension, they want me to do 24 hour urine to test for proteins while I'm healthy and not hypertensive, so they have a baseline for later in case there is an issue. They also want me to do a 1 hour glucose test now because of my extensive family history of diabetes.

I have my 2nd ultrasound today with the RE. I'm excited but nervous. I'm hoping everything is great and we see a heartbeat, but I'm really worried because I've been in such pain with the kidney stone that not everything will be ok. Fingers crossed.